1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of telecommunications. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method and a system for detecting fraudulent collect calls and bill-to-third-party calls.
2. Description of the Related Art
Years ago, when a customer contacted a billing center of a telecommunications service provider for denying all knowledge (DAK) of a collect call that was appearing on their bill, the service provider was able to examine a physical call ticket for the call for determining the name of the originating party. While examination of the physical call ticket took significant time and effort, many times the call ticket provided information that was helpful for sustaining collect call charges once the customer's recollection had been refreshed with the information provided by the call ticket.
In the conventional automated operator environment, such as that disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,627,887 to Freedman and incorporated by reference herein, the name of the party placing a collect call is captured by a recording and played for the called (billed) party during an acceptance verification query message generated by an automated collect call system. For example, a called party might receive a message like "This is a collect call from `recording here`, will you accept the charges?," where a recording of the calling party's voice saying the calling party's name is inserted in `recording here`. Presently, when a called party denies all knowledge of an accepted collect call, the recording or the name of the calling party can be easily retrieved and used for refreshing the called party's recollection for sustaining the collect call charges.
However, in situations when the originating number does not provide a listing having a meaningful name for the called party, such that of a coin operated telephone, a hotel room telephone, or from an overseas location, there may be no information available that can be used for refreshing the called party's recollection and thus sustaining the charges. Additionally, as the LEC environment becomes more competitive, obtaining data from a competitor LEC may be difficult for preventing DAK fraud, especially for smaller carriers in attempting to obtain information from a larger carrier.
What is needed is a way for collecting information about a collect call that can be used when a billed party denies all knowledge of receiving and accepting the call, thus preventing fraud.